


rescue flare

by orphan_account



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:09:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16410830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: a mission leaves tony with a broken leg and no line of communication with the avengers. how's peter going to get them both out of this one?





	rescue flare

the badlands were a pit of heat and every single ray of sunshine was both magnified and concentrated until each one was a singularity, burning peter's flesh and heating tony's suit until it was hot to the touch.  
"the comm's down," tony'd said just minutes before. peter had thought that had gone without saying when a huge mess of wires and even one small motherboard had tumbled out of a hole in the iron suit. peter didn't want to know how hard they'd hit that moutain of half-rock-half-sand for the nanotech to break like it had, but all peter knew was that if tony hadn't half wrapped himself around him like he had, he would be dead. however, they wouldn't have even been in this situation if peter just hadn't been so stubborn about coming on the mission and if the plane tony had been piloting hadn't crashed. when they'd come tumbling down, peter heard the unmistakable crack of a bone breaking and tony's unwillingness to get off the ground after they'd unceremoniously landed was down to more than just him being lazy or even a sprained ankle, like tony had tried to play it off as.  
his leg was broken, and it was all peter's fault.  
they were alone without supplies and without a direct line to the rest of the avengers with the only modes of transport (the plane that was now reduced to debris scattered across the sand and the iron suit which had been stripped of all function) rendered useless.  
it was all peter's fault.  
"the comm's down," tony repeated, mostly to himself. part of his face plate had broken away in the crash so peter could see his pained expression, even from where he was pacing a few steps away.  
"mr stark, what do i do?" peter asked while making his twentieth lap between a reddish coloured rock and a more orange-y one. he wasn't willingly letting it show but it was obvious he was becoming hysterical. his internal monologue was no more than an unintelligible incoherence of _planecrashmrstarkssuitmrstarksMULTIMILLIONSUIToutinthebadlandsnobodyherenobodyherenobodyHERE!!!_  
"kid," a gruff but strained voice said, vying for peter's attention, "did you hear me?"  
"yeah. yeah, mr stark, the comm's offline but how do we fix that?" peter attempted to deflect.  
"nah, you didn't hear me at all. you need to make that plane go 'boom'," tony started to explain slowly, still straining for breath, "so you need to get one of the broken glass shards- but don't cut yourself- and crack open a gasonline tank in the wreckage and-" he started to fight for breath again, short bursts of breath punching in and out of his lungs with whistles that were almost imperceptible to the human ear.  
peter wasn't fully human.  
he'd understood the general gist of what his mentor was trying to say, though, and blamed himself for not seeing the seemingly obvious solution sooner (the whole afternoon was becoming a long list of things that peter was blaming himself for), an explosion that doubled as a rescue flare.  
walking over to the biggest piece of the plane, peter forced a smile at the fact that one of the gasoline tanks had crumpled under the force of the fall and that there was a good amount of the liquid on the ground already. the other gas tank and a tank of pressurised air had rolled about ten feet away, so peter easily picked them both up and put them with the rest of the wreck.  
then came the glass.  
the glass had been designed to fracture and shatter into tiny pieces should it come across a great deal of force, so there wasn't a shard big enough for him to harness concentrated sunlight to induce an explosion.  
"damn," peter swore, rubbing his brow slightly and rocking back so he sat on his heels. "i'm allowing you three seconds of self pity, peter," he whispered to himself sternly but quietly so that tony wouldn't hear, "one. two. three."  
he lifted his head and looked around again, trying to locate any reflective surface at all before laying his eyes back on the iron suit.  
that would have to do.  
training his eyes forward again, he looked for the piece of the face plate that had come away in the crash. his fingers dug into the sand around him, tearing micro abrasions into his skin and rubbing his hands raw until finally- finally he located it.  
praising whatever higher power there was while holding the piece of hot metal in both hands and even kissing it, he leaned forward again to catch a ray of sun to light the gasoline with.  
"come on, sunshine," he goaded, as if trying to persuade the sun would bring him closer to his goal. "come on."  
finally, the fire started all at once and peter realised a second too late that he should probably have stayed clear or at least made sure he could quickly travel outside the explosion range instead of crouching in his heels.  
the pressurised air tank exploded immediately under the heat of the air and the fire, resulting in a terrific show of flames bubbling upwards in a mushroom shape. peter was thrown backwards with the force.  
backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards until he landed forcefully on his back for the second time in a few hours.  
his last thought before succumbing to unconsciousness was that he hoped sam would fly him back to headquarters.  
-  
"hey. hey, pete. earth to peter?" steve said with a voice so full of worry it was seeping into the air in the room. which room was he in, though?  
peter sat straight up with a gasp like he'd been woken from a nightmare. he was in his one of the small medbay rooms, thank goodness, which meant that bruce had probably checked him over and decided that he was fine. if he wasn't fine, he'd have been in a hospital. peter hated hospitals.  
his eyes searched the room wildly before he took in the sight of steve, who was now stood up instead of sat down in his chair, carding his hand through peter's hair.  
"t- tony. where's mr stark?" peter gasped, a tendril of anxiety needling its way around peter's lungs.  
"calm down, pete," steve started with even more worry, "he's fine, okay? he just can't stand right now because of his broken- hey, where are you going, mister?"  
peter had swung his legs over the bed and was now bounding to the room's door with the determination of an athlete. he said nothing but let his wild, desperate eyes linger on steve for a second longer before slipping out of the room. the kid was pale and looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, even though he'd spent the better part of fifteen hours unconscious. steve supposed that since he'd been woken up every half hour to check for signs of a concussion, it didn't exactly feel like he got a restful sleep but he wasn't even sure if peter remembered being shaken awake only to be asked who the president of the united states of america was ( _orange cheeto man_ ) and what year it was ( _twenty eighteen- now can i please go back to sleep?_ ) and who his favourite avenger was ( _iron man_ ). rhodey had been the first to ask him that particular set of questions and he relayed the last answer back to tony himself, hoping to make the man smile. it worked.  
peter burst into the room next to his, his eyes immediately focussing on the sleeping figure on the hospital bed. mr stark. tony. natasha sat on the chair at the head of the bed but she showed no outward sign of surprise and looked at him with a mumble of _was wondering when you'd barge your way in here_ but was otherwise silent.  
she pointed behind her to a spare chair, which peter took gratefully, and motioned for him to sit down next to her.  
"how are you?" she asked after a short interlude of watching tony sleep. she seemed genuinely curious, which shouldn't have made peter tear up as much as it had.  
"i'm fine, just- god, this is all my fault," peter lamented, finally letting himself fall apart quietly.  
"no it's not," natasha replied in that simple, even tone it seemed like she always took with peter, "if it's anyone's fault, it's the company who manufactured that plane."  
peter couldn't find it in himself to reply. he just hoped that mr stark woke up soon.


End file.
